Landman 〈90% COMPLETE〉

The call came at 3:17 AM, which meant either a pipe had burst or someone was dead. Clay Barlow swung his boots off the motel nightstand and grabbed his hard hat. In the Permian Basin, those were the only two reasons the phone ever rang after midnight.

“But the mineral rights—the lease terms—” Landman

“Neither. Worse.” Luis pointed toward a low ridge fifty yards from the new pad. “We found a grave.” The call came at 3:17 AM, which meant

He walked the perimeter of the grave one more time, tracing the faint depression in the earth. Then he climbed back in his truck and drove away before anyone could argue. Then he climbed back in his truck and

His truck ate up twenty miles of caliche road, past nodding donkeys and flares that burned like fallen stars. The air smelled of sulfur and money. He pulled up to Site 7-Gamma just as the night shift foreman, a kid named Luis with coke-bottle glasses, came jogging over.